Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/155

he is tired and the baby is crying, to run in to the Curtises'. He met Robert Hazelton there, the last time, consulting with Dr. Curtis. The old doctor is not well, and makes over a good deal of his practice to Robert. I asked Dana if he thought Robert saw much of Minnie; but Dana says that Robert has no time to talk to girls—says he does n't think he is that kind of doctor. It leaped to my lips to ask Dana why he was that kind of lawyer. But I did not do it. If I had, all the answer I should have got would have been: "You don't classify quite correctly. I'm going into politics," or some equally clever parry. Nothing would have been gained, and something lost—something of that indefinable advantage which a wife (more than a husband, I think) retains with self-possession. A woman can never afford to be cross. Why is it that a man can?

The first lesson of a wife is to learn when not to speak; I doubt if she ever learns why not. I am a dull pupil in the school of marriage. No Wilderness Girl takes to the higher mathematics with any natural grace. If it were not for my daughter—well, if it were not for my daughter? It is for my daughter—the insurmountable fact, the unanswerable question, the key that locks me to my lot. If I fled back to my forest, she